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Wednesday, February 10, 2016Anders Rosendahl

As Maersk rolls out more modern infrastructure around the world, the local employees who are taking on operations embody the belief in the long-term potential of these markets. Meet two employees who have returned to Mexico, a growing economy with bright prospects.

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Watch the video about Mexico – the second largest economy in Latin America
3:43

It is definitely Mexico’s moment right now. The country is benefiting tremendously from its supply of good quality labour, its proximity to the US, and its many free trade agreements.

Mexico has become a manufacturing powerhouse since joining NAFTA, a free trade agreement with the US and Canada, in 1994. The country produces three million cars a year and has an ambition to increase the number to five million by 2020. Roughly 80% of its trade is with the US.

Improved and enlarged transportation infrastructure capacity is needed to accommodate the import demand of the expanding middle class, along with products destined for manufacturing centres where they are finished and subsequently re-exported to the US – and increasingly to other countries, too.

“It is definitely Mexico’s moment right now. The country is benefiting tremendously from its supply of good quality labour, its proximity to the US, and its many free trade agreements. Mexico is part of the global supply chain and connectivity between Mexico and Asia is critical for that to work,” says Mario Veraldo, Managing Director at Maersk Line’s Middle America Cluster.

Lázaro Cárdenas terminal will be the most technologically advanced in Latin America when it opens in 2016.

2.8%

growth is the forecast for Mexico in 2016, according to the World Bank.

Today, Mexico has entered into more than 45 free trade agreements, most recently the Trans Pacific Agreement (TPP). Dubbed the largest trade agreement of a generation and potentially affecting 40% of the world’s economy, opening a massive potential for trade across the Pacific.

“The country has changed so much in terms of its economic structure over the past 20–25 years. It’s now an open economy, looking outward, rather than inward,” says Eduardo Garcia, an independent economist in Mexico City and founder of Sentido Común, a Mexican financial news website.

In 2015, Maersk Line transported just shy of 250,000 containers to and from Mexico, with its largest trade lanes to Asia.

“Maersk Line enables the global supply chain by being a big conveyor belt whereby clients on both sides of the Pacific can be assured that their products will be where they need to be, when they need to be,” Veraldo says.

A.P. Moller - Maersk

A.P. Moller - Maersk is an integrated transport and logistics company with multiple brands and is a global leader in container shipping and ports. Including a stand-alone Energy division, the company employs roughly 88,000 employees across operations in 130 countries.